


A Mile In Their Own Shoes

by LovelyPoet



Category: Penelope (2006)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, F/M, First Kisses, First Times, Fixing mix-ups, Found Family, Friendship, Frottage, Missing Scene, Mistaken Identity (in canon), Oral Sex, POV Alternating, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 14:03:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13055460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelyPoet/pseuds/LovelyPoet
Summary: From there to here, or a look at what happened between the end of the curse and the end of the movie.  (Because there are some things you don't want to tell your class of elementary school students about your love life... or your life in general.)





	A Mile In Their Own Shoes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [labellelunaclaire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/labellelunaclaire/gifts).



> Hey there, labellelunaclaire. Thank you so much for requesting Penelope for yuletide this year! It's one of my go-to comfort movies, and having the excuse to watch it about 7 billion more times let me pick up on a bunch of little things I'd missed the _first_ 7 billion times I watched it. I was really inspired by you saying you liked Mid-canon/Canon-compliant stories with found families, pining, and hopeful relationship angst. I had such fun writing for you, and I hope you enjoy the story!
> 
>  
> 
> For additional rambly (and mildly spoilery) content notes, jump to the end notes!

"I don't understand why you're doing this!" her mother says when Penelope announces her plans.

It's been three weeks since the wedding that wasn't and four days since her parents issued a press release saying she's left the country to spend a year abroad. The last of the photographers have given up lurking outside the gate. Penelope still startles at her reflection every morning, but day by day it's getting easier to see herself in her new face. 

"Mother, please. It's something I need," Penelope says. "I can have a normal life now! Really normal—no two-way mirrors or scarves or reporters. Just me!"

"But you're a Wilhern!" Jessica cries, "Wilherns aren't normal. Wilherns don't go live with roommates!"

"I had a roommate in college," Franklin says, not looking up from his newspaper. "You remember Guillermo, Jessica. He made that fantastic seafood stew the first time you came to visit."

"Franklin," Jessica's voice is edging upward in pitch, "tell Penelope she's being ridiculous!"

"Penelope," Franklin says, folding his paper and setting it aside as he catches Penelope with a steady serious look. "Your mother and I are very proud of you, and we just want you to be happy."

"Thank you, Dad" Penelope said. 

"We've spent so long thinking we had to protect you from the world," he continues. "That's hard to let go of. But you've already proven that we can't let our worries stop you from living your life any longer, sweetheart. Even if the life you choose is sleeping on a messenger girl's second-hand sofa."

Annie's apartment is on the sixth floor of a red brick building with a cheerful yellow door. Penelope presses the button next to the scrawl of green ink she recognizes as Annie's handwriting. The intercom speaker hisses and crackles in response. 

"It's me!" she says. Another brief crackle-hiss-crackle is followed by the buzz of the door unlocking. In the lobby, there's an elevator with an open wrought iron cage of a car. It lurches and creaks as it rises, and Penelope tightens her grip on her suitcases. Her stomach lurches along with it. When the elevator grinds to a halt, Penelope takes a deep breath and steps out into the hall. At apartment 6F Annie is waiting with a grin and a cold bottle of beer. 

"Welcome home," she says, and she has the grace to not be too startled when Penelope drops her suitcases and flings her arms around her in a desperate clinging hug. "Hey, c'mon. No crying in hallways. Let's get inside where the chocolate and beer is."

With her face still mashed into Annie's shoulder, Penelope makes a noise halfway between a sob and a laugh, but she can't bring herself to let go.

"Ok, alright," Annie says, and shuffles them backwards into the apartment.

Point of fact, Annie's sofa isn't second-hand, but it is a loveseat. It's a comfortable enough for two people to sit next to each other, but it's not made for sleeping. Penelope is eager to see the space Annie promised her.

"It's not much," Annie says as she pulls back the pink and purple striped curtain strung across the the archway separating an alcove next to the kitchen. "Uh, we can definitely figure out some doors, but I'm not the best with power tools. So for now..." 

It's clearly a breakfast nook by design, two bench seats facing each other in the narrow space. Now there's a neatly made mattress wedged on top of them, and a porcelain lamp in the shape of a smiling frog on the deep window ledge.

"It's perfect," Penelope says.

"You're sure?" Annie says. "I mean, I been to your house, Penelope. I know what you're used to. Pretty sure you got cabinets bigger than my whole place at the estate." 

"I'm sure." Penelope says. She sits down on the mattress, testing it's give. "I mean, Unless you've changed your mind. If you don't want me here—"

"Woah, hey, no!" Annie says. "Mi casa, su casa, home is where you take your bra off. All that jazz. Besides, you're doing me such a favor. I was supposed to be going halvsies on this place. But that crashed and burned, and it's hard to find a roomie when you can't offer an actual room."

That first night they order the biggest, cheesiest pizza that Giorgio's down the block has to offer, and they eat it while hashing out the final details of a cohabitation plan that had started as half-drunk musings. 

Things settle into a routine quickly. In the mornings Penelope wakes to the smell of brewing coffee and the sounds of Annie moving around the apartment. Most days they stand at the kitchen counter together and talk while they eat breakfast—fried eggs sandwiched between thickly buttered slices of toasted brown bread—before Annie leaves to start work.

Penelope spends her days wandering the city again and again. It's different this time around, no scarf, but no paparazzi either, freedom and anonymity. She passes people on the street and relishes their lack of attention. When she has cause to introduce herself to people, she tells them her name is Penny, Penny Wiltern. It's close enough to true to feel right, but just enough of a distinction that no one does the simple arithmetic. In the evenings, they hang out at Cloverdilly, where a few people laugh when they call her Scarfy, some quietly recognize her as Penelope, and others accept her easily as Penny. The name doesn't seem to make a difference one way or the other. She washes dishes when Jack needs the help, and he teaches her to pour the perfect pint and exactly how hard to push to get it to slide down to a waiting customer. 

"You know, you're not actually the first blue blood to pass out on the floor of my pub," Jack says one night after close when she's stuck around to help him clean up. 

"No, but I'm your favorite," Penelope says with a grin, and Jack doesn't bother to deny it.

Over the course of the spring, she improves her dart skills, manages to play a passable game of eight-ball, and goes out on three first dates just to see what it's like without matchmakers or mirrors or gag orders. (It's awkward every time.) Through it all she keeps an eye on the papers as they move their speculation of her whereabouts to below the fold, the interior pages, and finally out of the news cycle entirely. 

And when that strange hollow loneliness overcomes her in the quiet moments, she tells herself it isn't about Max. Some days she almost manages to believe it.

* * *

The day Johnny saw Penelope's face on the front page of _The Daily_ and turned nearly every cent he had left to his name over to Lemon, he put a five dollar chip on top of the piano. At first it was just a choice, but it's become a reminder of everything he is, everything he isn't, everything that he's let slip away, and everything he never actually had. He touches it on his way out of the loft.

He orders black coffee and a rich, savory pastry to go from the same café every morning. By the time he's reached his first appointment of the day, the coffee is cool enough to drink without scalding his tongue. He finishes it in long, slow swallows as he coaches an eight-year-old boy through scales and intervals, blind mice, twinkling stars, and only sunshines. Three more lessons fill the morning before he takes the long way home—through the park, skirting the edge of the river—watching people from the corner of his eye as he passes them. 

"Johnny?" a vaguely familiar feminine voice calls out. Johnny keeps walking, but the voice calls out again. "Johnny Martin?"

He stops, looks, and has to fight a sudden roiling nausea when he recognizes Wanda just a few yards away. She's moving toward him slowly, like she thinks he's about to bolt like a skittish cat. He's not entirely sure he won't. 

"How did you find out?" he asks when she's standing directly in front of him on the path.

"Lemon," she says. "He told us the whole story. Edwards involvement, too. Right before the wedding."

"Does Penelope know?" Johnny says. "Is that why she--- I mean. I know the wedding didn't happen. It was hard to miss the fall out in the papers."

"No. No, that was Penelope's decision all on her own and for her own sake, but _thank god_ for it. I wanted to tell her, though" Wanda says. "Her mother said-- Well. You know Jessica." 

"Yeah, I do." Johnny says, shaking his head. "Jeeze. She really would have let Penelope marry him. He didn't love her, you know."

"I know," Wanda says, looking at him intently. Johnny forces himself to hold still, not to squirm or fidget under the scrutiny. 

"Look," he says, taking a step back, "It's good to see you, but I should get going."

"Johnny, wait," Wanda says, catching him by the sleeve. "If things had been different--" 

"But they aren't," he says, cutting her off. Johnny doesn't think he can stand to have her pressing at a question he's already asked and answered for himself a thousand times over. "I'm still me, and that's not somebody that can give Penelope what she needs."

"But if they _were_ different?" Wanda says

"Yeah," Johnny says, feeling the ache like a bruise. "If things were different. Yes, in a fucking second." 

Wanda stares at him for a minute, like she's trying to make up her mind about something. Then, she draws him into a hug, quick and tight and utterly unexpected.

"You take care of yourself, Johnny Martin," She whispers into his ear before she turns and walks back the way she came. 

Johnny makes the rest of his way home in a daze. Once he pulls the door of the loft closed behind him he takes off his jacket, rolls up his sleeves, sits down at the piano, closes his eyes, and plays. More than a decade of technique disappears in an instant, his fingers move over the keys spilling a mess of emotions out into sound. He's an hour in before he realizes he's hoping—waiting— for the feather light touch of Penelope's hands on top of his. 

He knows it's ridiculous, impossible, nothing he's ever going to have again. 

He keeps playing.

He only stops when the sun has moved well into its decent, long shadows stretching through the apartment. Johnny is drenched with sweat, hair plastered to his forehead, shirt damp and sticking under his arms and in the small of his back. His hands are tight, just on the edge of cramping, and his pulse is throbbing in his fingertips. He flexes them, shakes out his wrists, and stands as he pulls the cover over the keys. 

He showers, scrubs his skin almost raw under stinging-hot water, and pulls on clean clothes. In the medicine cabinet he finds a bottle of drugstore brand painkillers that are only 4 months past their expiration. He shakes two tablets into his hand and fills a glass from the kitchen, tosses back the pills and following them with three big gulps. At the refrigerator, he picks through an ever-present (ever revolving) mess of take-out containers and deli packages of meat and cheese. Johnny eats his fill of leftover lo mein as the apartment gets dark around him. 

The phone rings.

"What the fuck, Johnny?" Sam's voice comes through tinny and nearly overwhelmed by background noise. "I told you, no more screw ups."

"Shit," Johnny says, finally noticing the the clock on the wall. "It's not like that, man. I had lessons all morning. Got caught up working on a thing when I got home and just lost track of time." 

"Get here," Sam says.

"Twenty minutes," Johnny says. "I'll be there."

He makes it in fifteen. Sam stares him down, only offering an unimpressed shake of his head when he walks in. Johnny doesn't try to give any excuses. He goes straight to the back and starts counting stock. 

The band on tonight isn't one Johnny's heard of or one he particularly cares about hearing from again. Still, after a few songs he finds himself humming along as he moves around the club to collect glasses and bottles and wiping tables. He's making his way toward the bar with a tray full of empties when the crowd parts and he sees the woman. He's only got sight of her for a second, long dark hair and big eyes, a wide carefree smile as she dances. It's not her, he tells himself, obviously not her. It's still enough to stop him short, his mouth going suddenly dry and heart ratcheting up until it feels like it's about to burst straight through his ribs. 

Sam finds him a few minutes later sitting on a crate in the basement, hunched in on himself.

"You ok?" Sam says, standing over him. 

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine," Johnny says, scrubbing his hands through his hair. "Just needed a little break from the noise. Gimme a minute and I'll get back to work."

"You don't look so good. And not the usual way," Sam says. "You sure you're not coming down with something?"

"Getting over something, more like," Johnny says with a sigh. "Seriously, Sam. I'll be fine."

He's not, though. He can't shake it. Can't stop thinking about her. Not while he mops up, and not on the long slow walk back home. Even once he's stripped and crawled into bed, he can't shake the what-ifs and wonderings. What would he do if he did see her again? Where is she tonight? Is she alone? Is she happy? 

He just wants her to be happy.

* * *

Penelope finds out about the community garden on the first Sunday in June. When she goes down to get the paper, there's a flyer posted in the lobby of Annie's building ("It's your building, too," Annie tells her every time she calls it that). The simple black ink on cheap green copier paper announces available ground plots and raised beds, a workshop schedule, and a need for volunteers.. By Wednesday Penelope's on her knees, wrist deep in sunwarm soil as she transplants a selection of what she's had growing on the fire escape, the window sills, countertops, and every other surface she felt comfortable claiming in the apartment. 

"What those?" a small voice asks, and when Penelope looks up there's a tiny little girl in a pair of pink denim overalls. She's holding the hand of an older woman with an indulgent smile. 

"These," Penelope holds up one of the fragile seedlings, "are tomato plants. Do you like tomatoes?" 

The little girl wrinkles her nose and shrugs. 

"See, they're baby plants right now, but I'm going to move them from this little cup so they can grow nice and big like you," Penelope says. "Do you want to help me."

The little girl shrugs again, but she lets go of her mother's hand to take a step closer, tilting her head and watching curiously as Penelope digs out a neat row in the soil. By the time the seedlings are all placed, the girl is kneeling right next to Penelope. Together, they pack down the soil, and Penelope helps her lift the watering can to sprinkle just the right amount 

"We tuck them in, mama!" the girl says, wiping her dirty hands over the bib of her overalls. "Shhh, they take nap"

"You did such a good job, Minnie" the woman says, ruffling her hand through her daughter's hair before turning her attention to Penelope. "And you were very good with her. Are you a teacher?"

"Me? No." Penelope shakes her head. "I'm-- I kind of work at the Cloverdilly. It's part time. I'm mostly trying to figure out what comes next. Plants are a hobby." 

"A hobby?" The woman says, giving a meaningful look to sheer quantity of planters and mason jars and dixie cups surrounding Penelope where she sits.

"A passion?" Penelope offers with a smile. 

"Hmmm. The garden had a kids club last year, but they had to cancel it when the instructor moved away," the woman says, digging through her purse to pull out a crisp white business card with a name and phone number in simple block print. "If it's something you'd be interested in, I'm on the steering committee. It doesn't pay much, but it does pay."

That's how Penelope finds herself reading to a group of attentive five and six year olds two weeks later, before walking them through making their own [garden in a glove](http://zweberfarms.com/free-farm-lesson-plans-garden/). At the end of the lesson, she tucks permission slips for a trip to the botanical gardens into their backpacks and tells them she'll see them at the next class.

That night, she eats dinner with her parents. There's a new house servant, the third since Jake's departure. This one is named Ingard. She has short cropped hair that's somewhere between steel and platinum and shoulders that barely fit through the kitchen door. She always smiles when she slips Penelope a tin of fresh buttery cookies to take home. She is Penelope's favorite so far.

Half way through the soup course, Penelope's mother stops eating long enough to carefully write something on the small slate she's taken to keeping on hand since it became clear her voice isn't coming back any time soon. She holds it up: 

_Have you looked at any of the real estate listings I've sent you, darling?_

"No, mother," Penelope says, exasperated but not surprised. "Annie and I are getting along really well. I like living with her a lot."

Jessica purses her lips and begins writing again until Franklin reaches over and stills her hand.

"Wonderful," he says. "And it sounds like you've got a lot going on. The pub, the garden... "

Jessica yanks her hand free, and writes _and have you met any nice young men?_

"I've gone on some dates," Penelope admits, looking down into her soup. "But nothing serious. I don't think I'm quite ready. Not after everything with Edward. And with Max."

Jessica coughs suddenly, covering her mouth with her napkin, waving off Penelope and Franklin's concern with her eyes darting around the room when they ask her if she's ok. She's still avoiding their gazes when Ingard appears to clear away their main course, and by desert she's wearing her best it-wasn't-me-i-don't-know-what-you're-talking-about smile. Penelope picks at her cheesecake, too intent on the probably hopeless desire to for once figure out what's going on in her mother's head to enjoy it. 

When she gets home, Annie has the chessboard set up on the coffee table along with chilled bottles of Penelope's newest favorite cider. They're three matches and several drinks deep when Annie puts her queen into position to be attacked from two different angles. Suddenly the memory rolls over Penelope like a wave—Max smiling through the mirror as they talk about power, love, and loyalty. Before she can surface, every other moment floods in and pulls her deeper. 

The careful way he moved toward her when she first revealed herself, like he was more afraid for her than of her. The look on his face when he rejected her proposal with _can't_ not _won't_. That night he seemed so proud and happy for her at the Cloverdilly, and his strange confrontation with Edward the last time she saw him at the theater.

None of it adds up

There's a piece missing, something she's not seeing. She can feel it, and it sits heavy like an ache in her chest. 

"You gonna make a move?" Annie says.

"I miss him," Penelope says, not even realizing it's aloud until Annie makes a questioning noise. She says it again. "I _miss_ him." 

"Who?" Annie makes a face. "Oh jeeze, not Edward?"

"No," Penelope shakes her head, tears threatening to spill over onto her cheeks. "Max. I wanted him to be the one. I really thought he might have been it. He didn't want to be the one, though. Or at least, that's what I thought." 

"Oh, Penelope," Annie says. She gets up and is back a few seconds later with a half gallon of ice cream and two spoon.

"Isn't this a little cliche?" Penelope asks, prying the top of the ice cream. 

"Cliches get that way for a reason. Now, dish." 

The chess board sits forgotten, Annie's queen saved from her cruel fate. Penelope tells Annie all the parts she doesn't already know. From the first time she and her mother met Wanda and Jessica rattled of a laundry list of details about the kind of men Penelope was to be matched with, all the way up through the brief, bright, crazy hope she'd let herself have the morning of the wedding that Max would sweep in with a dramatic objection and break the curse with a kiss and a declaration of his devotion. 

"Wow," Annie says. "Wow."

"Don't get me wrong," Penelope says. "I'm glad it was me that broke the curse. And I'm so glad I met you and Jack and everybody. But…"

"No, I get it," Annie nods. "Love's messy, but it's like the best kind of mess when it's good. Especially when it's _really_ good, you know what i'm saying? And you deserve that Penelope. You deserve something good like you want. And I hope wherever this Max guy is, he's regretting being a complete dumbass."

"He's not a dumbass," Penelope says, oddly indignant on Max's behalf.

"He hurt my friend," Annie says. "That means he's dumbass til he proves he's not. I don't make the rules." 

Penelope lets Annie hug her breathless. 

When she finally goes to sleep in her perfect little alcove, she dreams of witches and weddings and and out of tune love songs.

* * *

In July Sam comes through with a backing gig at the club, and when Johnny shows up for that one he comes through with four more before the end of the month. Then it's a week of session work for an up-and-comer with a guitar and a good face in August. By September, Johnny's working more hours than he isn't. The busier he is, the less time he spends thinking about the could have beens. At least, that's what he tells himself. But when he's not working, he's writing, and everything he writes is for her. Love song after love song. Every piece of paper he touches winds up with scribbled notes and chords and fragments of lyrics. They aren't the same as the songs he used to write when he was a dumb kid who believed love conquered all without any question. Those were all three chord pop and optimism. He knows better than that now, gravitates toward the complexities. But there's a thread of hope and longing running through all of them that he can't quite seem to give up.

He still thinks he sees her sometimes, a flash here, a glimpse there. At first, it was enough to punch the air out of his lungs every time, but he's gotten used to it now. It's almost predictable, seeing a scarf flutter around a corner at the end of the block, hearing a laugh in the distance. Now it's easier to remind himself that it's just wishful thinking and a trick of the light. 

He doesn't even know what he'd say to her if he did see her now. How could he explain. He wonders if maybe her mother has given in and told her by now. If Penelope's ashamed knowing who she begged to save her, or if she understands now why he couldn't.

There's a van idling in front of the studio. Johnny swears under his breath and walks past it without looking at the driver. He doesn't have to. The van starts rolling, keeping pace with him, and from the corner of his eye he can see the window roll down. 

"Hey, Johnny," Lemon says from behind the wheel. 

"Lemon," Johnny says. He keeps walking. "I haven't seen her. Or even heard anything about her." 

"I know," Lemon says, flexing his hands against the steering wheel, "but I have." 

"Really? Didn't see any headlines." Johnny says, stopping short with the realization that Lemon's not going anywhere until he says whatever he's come to say. 

"It's not my story anymore," Lemon says. He throws the van back into park and kills the engine. "You know that. I just thought you might want to know that she's ok."

"I'm glad," Johnny says, working to keep his voice steady.

"She didn't go overseas. That was just another line her mother fed the the press. Old habits, I guess" Lemon says as he shifts over to the passenger seat. "From what I hear, though, she's happy. Mostly. Wanda thinks she might be a little lonely." 

"Why are you telling me this?" Johnny asks, scrubbing his forehead against the back of his hand. 

"We, I mean. I figured you might have reason to want to know." Lemon says. "What about you? Is Johnny Martin happy?" 

"I'm getting by," Johnny says, stepping in closer to the van, resting his hands on the roof. "Trying to put the whole thing behind me. Move on. You know how it is."

"Hmm," Lemon says, "I was actually a little worried at first when I stopped by the card club and nobody could remember when you'd been in last. Eve says she misses you, by the way." 

"Tell Eve I know she only misses my bad luck. And I'm not going t o be back. I gave it up as a bad bet," Johnny says, drumming his hands in a rimshot. "Why are you checking up on me anyway? If Penelope's not your story anymore, then I'm sure as hell not anybody's story."

"You kinda grew on me. Like mold." Lemon says with a shrug. "But if you tell anybody I said so, I'll deny it." 

"Obviously," Johnny says with a roll of his eyes. "So, Wanda, huh? She feeding you all the best blue blood gossip now?" 

"We run into each other sometimes," Lemon says, and Johnny recognizes an understatement when he hears one. "She's, uh, out of the high-society marriage business actually." 

"So she's not the one who sicced Edward on that poor countess?" Johnny asks. He makes a face at himself the second the question is out of his mouth. It's not keeping tabs if he just happens to pic up a gossip rag in the studio sometimes. 

"Now that one," Lemon says with a shake of his head, "that one's apparently an honest to god love match. Would you believe it?" 

"Not really," Johnny says. 

"There's no a-countess-ing for taste," Lemon says, a great smirking grin on his face when Johnny glares. "I'll see you around kid."

"No offense, Lemon, but I hope not." Johnny says, pushing away from the van.

"Fair enough." Lemon says, sketching a wave, and Johnny turns and walks away. 

It's a few days later that the good face with a guitar tells Johnny that he's booked a three week club tour starting in November, and he wants Johnny with him. 

"You got obligations here?" He asks when Johnny hesitates.

"No," Johnny says after another minute, admitting it to himself. There's nothing tying him to the city except pointless hope that Penelope is around the next corner he turns. Maybe a change of scenery is what he really needs to get her out of his mind for good.

They shake on it, a gentleman's agreement the kid calls it, and Johnny chokes back a bitter laugh.

* * *

The truth arrives the week before Halloween. 

"You're buddy Wanda sent you something," Annie says from where she's lying with her legs hanging over the arm of the loveseat as soon as Penelope gets home from the school. 

"Wanda?" Penelope says, her eyebrows raising in surprise. It's not that she hasn't stayed in touch with Wanda. She talked to her just three days ago, in fact. It hadn't been much more than _hey, how are you?_ and _good, how about you?_. But Wanda didn't say anything about sending anything. 

"You don't think you're mom's going wedding wacky again, do you?" Annie asks. 

"No," Penelope says, picking the envelope and turning it over in her hands. "She hasn't even asked me if I've had any dates the last three times I've been to dinner. And I don't think she's been talking to Wanda at all. Beside's Wanda told me she's not even doing that stuff anymore."

"Well, it felt like papers and shit when I got it out of the mailbox," Annie says, opening her eyes and groaning as swings her legs around to the floor and sits up. "Are you going to open it?"

Penelope sits down next to her and picks at the seal on the flap of the envelope. She takes a deep breath, and tears the envelope open like ripping off a band-aid. 

"Huh," Penelope says, fiddling with the edges of the stack of papers after she pulls it out. There's a single piece of plain white note paper clipped on top of it in Wanda's familiar looping handwriting, and seeing it stirs up a strange mix of emotions.

All it says is _if you're ready, you deserve to know about Max_.

Penelope flips it back and starts to read. Her hands go hot and cold and start to shake. It doesn't make any sense. And it makes perfect sense. 

"Penelope?" Annie sounds far away. "Hey, you're breathin' all funny. You okay? C'mon, don't faint on me again. What is it?"

"It's Max," Penelope says. "It's… it's him."

"Lemme see," Annie says, and Penelope lets her take the file out of her hands. "Huh. Johnny Martin."

"Johnny Martin," Penelope echos. 

"Not Max," Annie says.

"No, not Max," Penelope says.

"So. What are you going to do?" Annie asks. 

"I. I have no idea." Penelope says. She wants to ignore it, bury these papers and never see them again. And she wants to go knock on Max—Johnny's door until he answers. She wants to yell at him and she wants to kiss him senseless. All she can do right now is read everything over and over. 

Johnny Martin, born Born September 7th, 1980 to James and Sarah Martin, a plumber and ladies dress-shop clerk respectively. Johnny Martin, gambler. Johnny Martin, music teacher, former band member, and session musician.

She needs to think.

She keeps the file within reach. She reads it every night like a bedtime story and carries it to school with her every day. She tries not to think about it during class, but as soon as the kids are at lunch she can feel her hands itching to look through it again. There's not really that much information there. It's certainly not enough to warrant the amount of time she's spent poring over it. She keeps coming back to the photos, it's Max, just like she remembers him — rumpled and tired. And she realizes that Max or Johnny, he's the same person, and so is she. And even though she doesn't need him to save her, she still wants him.

But she still doesn't know what to do about it. 

Right up until the moment she does. 

She buys the mask from a street fair vendor on the way home.

"Lucky girl," he says to her as she pays. "It's my last one. You look a bit like her, you know. ‘Cepting through the nose, i mean, obviously."

Penelope smiles and thanks him, walks away turning the mask over in her hands. 

"It's kind of a crazy idea," Annie says when Penelope tells her what she wants to do. "I love it."

* * *

The party outside is loud and overwhelming, and Johnny tried to go out and enjoy it, but there are memories everywhere he turns tonight. He can't wait to get out of this town for a little while. It's only one more day until tour starts, and the change will be good for him, he thinks. 

The knock on his door is barely loud enough to be heard over the reverberations of the music. 

Pulling in a deep breath, he opens the door. 

It's almost enough to make him laugh, a woman standing there wearing a pale imitation of Penelope in cheap molded plastic. He lets her in anyway. He's not sure if he's being neighborly or masochistic. Or both. 

"Why aren't you at the party," she says. The closed door of the bathroom muffles her voice a little. It sparks something. He tries to shake himself out of it. He's seen no less than thirty Penelopes on the street and in the halls tonight. None of them have brought on that gut-punch, dry-mouth feeling. But this one makes him question his senses and his sanity. He knew her voice long before he knew her face, and there's something about this woman talking to him through the wall. 

"I had a friend once, he liked to gamble," she says. Johnny makes himself look away, to focus on the voice not the half concealed face. It's there. In every tone and cadence. Penelope. 

"Take off the mask," he says, but even when he tells her why, she doesn't. 

"This someone, she meant a lot to you?" she says instead. Johnny wonders how far they're going to take this circling game of pretend. She's here, and he knows, and he feels like it's bleeding off him in bright, blinking neon, Penelope, Penelope, Penelope. 

"I couldn't give her what she wanted," he says, and when she asks what that was, he gives the best answer he can. "To be free." 

It must be the right one because the pretense is gone in a second.

The first kiss is dizzying, better than it has any right to be with Johnny half terrified it's going to be the only chance he gets. He makes the most of it, pulling her close and pouring every bit of longing he's felt for the last year into it. She meets him move for move, pressing closer, her mouth open under his, hungry and wanting. Johnny wants to just give in, to stretch this moment into forever, but he he can't deny her the truth anymore. He forces him to stop, pulling back. 

"...I don't have the power…."

"... I did."

* * *

"Johnny." The name is still strange on her tongue, but the awestruck look on his face when she says it is worth it. "I'm still me." 

The second kiss bleeds into a third, a fourth, a fifth, and soon enough she's lost count. The sounds of the party outside rise and fall and fade into the background. Penelope cards her fingers through Johnny's hair, laughing when he shivers and groans at her nails against his scalp. His hand keeps coming back to cup her face, his thumb brushing over the contours of her cheeks, the ridge of her nose. When he pulls away to look at her, she reels him back in and he returns to her easily, smiling against her mouth. 

She can't help but gasp when his mouth slides along the curve of her jaw to her neck, his teeth scraping against a sensitive spot beneath her ear. 

"How?" he asks, the words vibrating over her skin.

"Does it matter?" Penelope says, not even sure whether he's asking about the curse how how she found him. Either way, conversation isn't what she wants in this moment when one of his hands is tangled in her hair and the other is strong and firm in the small of her back. 

"Right now? Honestly? No." Johnny says, his mouth still pressed hot against her skin. 

"Kiss me again," Penelope says, and Johnny does, hot and open and intense. She doesn't think she'll ever get enough of it. She wants more. She wants everything. Heat and need pooling in her belly already. When Johnny's hand slips down her throat and between her breasts to rest on the knotted ties of her coat, she nods and makes a sound of assent. He unties them carefully, slowly. He pushes her coat off her shoulders gently, his eyes wide, staring at her in her work clothes and striped tights like she's precious, like he's not entirely sure she's real. She's not entirely sure she is, either. There is a part of her that expects to wake up any moment and be at home. Not in Annie's breakfast nook, but in the estate, still locked away from everyone and everything. In this moment, she can't believe that she really gets to have this life she's built _and him._

Penelope lets her coat fall to the floor. She knows what she wants, but she can feel the words tangling up inside her throat. She takes him by the wrist and moves toward his bed where it sits in a pool of moonlight pouring through the giant grid of windows. She stops at the edge of his bed, lets go of him and climbs up to kneel in the center of the mattress. She climbs onto the bed to kneel in the center of the ring of light. 

Johnny follows.

* * *

He can't stop his hands from shaking like a nervous teenager. But then, Penelope's are trembling too as they work at each other's buttons and zippers. Soon their shirts are gone, thrown to some unknown corner. His pants follow quickly and then her ridiculous striped tights. Her skirt is bunched around her waist when she straddles and settles on top of him. And he can feel the heat of her through the last two layers of fabric separating them. Every inch of skin he's uncovered is begging for attention. Who is he to refuse?

He skates his hands up her legs to her hips, over the small of her back and up to shoulder blades, pulling her chest against his, so much warm bare skin. When he slips his hands back down along her sides and just barely brushes against the edge of her breast, she arches back and sucks in a sharp breath. So he follows his hands with his mouth, laying wet, open kisses over the curve of her breast, working his way slowly over her flesh until his tongue is lapping at her nipple to feel it harden. His thumb teases lazy circles around the other one. She's moving on him, rocking down against him in desperate rolls of her hips. The pressure and friction has him on edge like the first time, and he can't help himself from meeting her movements with his own.

"I love you," Penelope says as she bends down, her long hair falling around them like a curtain. Before he can reply, she draws his mouth back to hers. 

"This is crazy," Johnny murmurs against lips. Everything's happening so fast after so long thinking it would never happen at all. "Fuck, I love you too. You know I do." 

"Please, Johnny," She says, breathless from this much already. "Please."

The need in her voice is sweet, so much sweeter than the last time she asked for something. Johnny's always wanted to give her everything, and now he can. Only… he groans, swears inwardly. He wasn't prepared for this. But Johnny's not going to let her her down again. 

"Yes," he says. "Ok, just… god, let me do this for you." 

He shifts then, lifting her off of him, urging her down onto her back and he hovers over her, licks into her mouth, sucks at the tender pale skin of her throat, nuzzles into the space between her breasts. He can feel her tense for just a moment when he draws his mouth lower, tongue dipping into her navel, and nose dragging along the softness of her stomach. 

"Ok?" he asks, glancing up as his hand slips between her legs, fingers brushing in teasing touch over the damp cotton of her underwear. She's leaning up on her elbows staring down at him, and her eyes are dark and wide.

"Please," she says again, falling back against the bed and lifting her hips for him. 

He draws her underwear down, teasing slow, then kisses his way back up her legs even slower. Tongue and just a hint of teeth from calf to knee to thigh until she's trembling from it. She is beautiful like this in his bed, bare and wild-eyed wanting. When he moves back up to kiss across her stomach, one hip to the other, she makes a small frustrated sound and Johnny smiles against her skin. He lowers his mouth to her, finally, and tastes.

* * *

"Oh!" Penelope cries out at the first touch of his tongue, slick and hot where she's already so much so. 

She feels Johnny hum in satisfaction. She can't stop herself from moving, pressing herself against his mouth, and he doesn't seem to mind. He moves with her easily, keeping his mouth right where she needs it most, his tongue working against her in wonderful quick flutters and long curling licks that make every nerve in her body spark. And when his fingers press up and into her, finding a deeper, better place than she ever has for herself, Penelope can't stop the moan from bubbling up. She gives up her desperate hold on the bed sheets and tangles her fingers instead in his hair. When she tightens her grip, he makes a sound that goes straight to the core of her. She feels shameless, using his wonderful perfect mouth and fingers to draw her own pleasure out. 

Penelope sobs out his name as she comes, and he takes her right through one orgasm into the crest of another. She's still shaking when he moves back up her body, kissing her with her own taste thick on his tongue. She reaches between their bodies and finds him hard and wanting. When he comes, it's with his hand guiding hers on him, and he spills over their fingers messy and perfect. 

"I have to go," Johnny says, after. After they've cleaned up and traded more kisses and touches, and cleaned up again. After they've sat wrapped in sheets on the floor in front of the refrigerator fighting over the last pieces of chicken in a carton of fried rice. After Penelope has dressed and called a taxi to take her home because even with her world turned upside down in the best possible way, she still has work in the morning.

"What?" Penelope says, looking up from retying the laces on her coat. He looks nervous and she can't figure out why.

"The job. I leave tomorrow." Johnny says, eyes downcast, scratching at the back of his neck. "It's a three week gig." 

"Ok" Penelope says.

"So. I have to go," Johnny says. "But I swear, I'm coming back."

"I know," Penelope smiles easily. She pops up on her tiptoes to kiss him one last time, for now. "It's only three weeks. You know where to find me."

* * *

He does. And when Johnny tumbles out of a cab in late November and rings the buzzer on of a red brick building with a cheerful yellow door, the intercom hisses and crackles at him. The door buzzes when it unlocks, and the elevator lurches with each floor it rises, his stomach lurching along with it. At apartment 6F, Penelope is waiting in the hall, and she kisses him as easy as though she's been doing it every day and says, "Welcome home."

**Author's Note:**

> You asked for a good-terms parental relationship in your Sky High request, so I assumed you would want that here too. I did my best to do so without erasing who Penelope's mother was in canon. I also did my best to stick with healthy relationship dynamics while in the whole mistaken identity/misunderstandings context. 
> 
> Not being sure of your recipients feelings about sex scenes is often a hazard of yuletide. I never want to let anybody down or ruin their yuletide either way. So I put it in, but the story should definitely hold up if you skim over it. 
> 
> Yes, I am ABSOLUTELY implying that Lemon and Wanda have a thing going after the curse is broken. Because it's not yuletide if I'm not accidentally talking myself into a new ridiculously rare-pair ship in the process of writing.


End file.
